Evidence for why we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

[John Jones]

Science says” There was a beginning of time, space, and matter according to general relativity which was first proposed by Albert Einstein...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

However, when considering the language of the Bible, science would agree to the point of Genesis 1:3 – that the next development step, from the vantage point of the surface of the earth, would be that dense gases would become translucent

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Science says: the next step in development was that heated water would evaporate into clouds. This would set up the hydrological cycle, which is necessary for life.

Where does science say this?

Science says: The next phase of planetary development would be heavy seismic and volcanic activity, which would have caused creation of the continents and other land masses in a proportion of 30 percent land -– ideal for life.

Where?

“the ten steps of creation in Genesis agree with the listing of the order of those same events as defined by science. The odds of randomly “guessing” this order would be about 1 chance in 4 million, similar to the odds of winning a state lottery with a single ticket.”

He didn't show his maths

 

[X]

<snip idiocy>

Bwahahahaha!

That is not evidence. it is a desperate, tenuous and asinine attempt at post-hoc rationalization.

Muncaster goes on to describe 5 more steps which I might bring in later as time permits.

Highlighting mine.


If the best you can do is Muncaster's ridiculous straw-clutching and semantic twisting, then don't bother.

He then says on page 81

“the ten steps of creation in Genesis agree with the listing of the order of those same events as defined by science. The odds of randomly “guessing” this order would be about 1 chance in 4 million, similar to the odds of winning a state lottery with a single ticket.”

Highlighting mine.


The odds of someone being able to dishonestly twist phrases, meanings and words to suit their own heavily biased and ideologically driven agenda, on the other hand, are somewhat higher.

 

[Think_Tank]

Step 1 (Genesis 1: 1,2) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

/wafflesnip

Muncaster goes on to describe 5 more steps which I might bring in later as time permits. He then says on page 81

“the ten steps of creation in Genesis agree with the listing of the order of those same events as defined by science. The odds of randomly “guessing” this order would be about 1 chance in 4 million, similar to the odds of winning a state lottery with a single ticket.”

Utter garbage. The Earth is around 4.54 billion years old, and the earliest oceans are estimated to have formed 4.4 billion years ago at the very earliest. This gives the Earth around 140 million years of being a volcanic wasteland being battered by meteorites. Please try again.

 

[Agatha]

The authors of the OT weren't randomly guessing an order, thoguh, were they? They knew the world around them, they knew that light and water were necessary for plants to grow, and that the world needed to exist in order for there to be a place for plants to grow (so it had to come first) and they knew that vegetation was necessary to provide food for animals. Muncaster's dishonest and deplorable attempt to paint the OT authors as people who had no knowledge of the world around them deserves nothing but contempt.

 

[carlitos]

dude

Muncaster goes on to describe 5 more steps which I might bring in later as time permits. He then says on page 81

“the ten steps of creation in Genesis agree with the listing of the order of those same events as defined by science. The odds of randomly “guessing” this order would be about 1 chance in 4 million, similar to the odds of winning a state lottery with a single ticket.”

I'll get to your points about the alleged differences as time permits.

DOC,

Muncaster sounds like a complete idiot. I wouldn't rely on him for anything science or math related. His "odds" of 1 in 4 million are completely pulled out of his ass. I defer to other posters as to the science stuff, which also sounds ridiculously simple-minded. Not a good source.

All the best and Merry Christmas,
c

 

[Belz...]

I can't believe this thread is longer than Christophera's Realistice thread...

 

[Gandalfs Beard]

There's a winged horse in the first and last books of The Chronicles Of Narnia*, written by Christian and apologist C S Lewis. The Narnia books are Christian allegory, even down to the death and resurrection of Aslan, and the whole point of the children meeting Aslan was to bring them closer to Jesus and/or God.**

So now we have our winged horse!

*Fledge, formally Strawberry the cab-horse, in The Magican's Nephew and The Last Battle.

**Aslan's words to Lucy in The Voyage of The Dawn Treader. I don't have a copy here at work but it's along the lines of "I brought you here so that you would know me, now you must know me in your world" In context, this is a clear reference to Aslan being Jesus/God.

Lewis was not the sort of Christian that most people seem to think he was. Even in his Apologetic works he reveals himself to be a Universalist of sorts. He was an Atheist, and a fan of Classical Paganism, and Medieval Syncretism long before Tolkien convinced Lewis to become "the most reluctant Christian convert." And he was always a fan of Plato and the Pagan Greek philosophers.

Roger Lancelyn Greene reports that during a visit to Greece at the shrine of Apollo, Lewis stated that he practically reverted to Paganism and thought it would not have been wrong to worship at Apollo's shrine as he was a "subspecie" of Christ.

In the Abolition of Man Lewis suggests that all the major religions shared a moral code, a Universal Truth that he called the Tao (which demonstrates how liberal his Theology was). In Mere Christianity, Lewis suggests that God will make "all mankind as Gods if only we would let him.," which is a Gnostic/Mystical notion that most of his Moderately Conservative American Evangelical supporters would disavow as heresy if they didn't just sort of gloss over those bits.

Lewis was well aware that the Christ story was an iteration of all the previous dying and resurrected pagan sun-gods (who were nearly all represented as a lion). That he named his Lion "Christ" figure Aslan is revealing, as Aslan is the word for Lion in Turkish, Persian, and Arabic. And indeed there are Numerous associations in the Narnia books between Aslan and the Sun.

And the "Winged Horse" is clearly an iteration of PEGASUS, a creature of Pagan Mythology. Nor should one forget that the animist spirit of the waters is called a "River God" in Lewis's own words, as is the "Sleeping God of Time" who will awaken at the end of days (who appears in the Silver Chair and The Last Battle).

Another telling feature of the Chronicles of Narnia is that the girls are the moral center of the books, and Lucy is the one closest to Aslan, belying the notion that Lewis was some sort of Misogynist. Instead presaging the "return of the Sacred Feminine" that would come to be a popular concept in latter 20th century neo-pagan and Wiccan circles.

Lewis intellectually accepted the science of his day (including evolution--despite attempts by Creationists to convince him otherwise). Though he thought that Materialist Reductionism was a poor model for the Psyche to live by, and placed great stock in the Imagination.

It is true that he came to believe that the Christ Story was a "True Myth" as Tolkien used that argument to win Lewis over. If anything, Lewis's worldview was pagan, and he came to view Christianity through that lens. Indeed the group of intellectuals he hung out with had a range of mystical and "occult" views, influenced by Theosophical, Neo-pagan, and Alchemical traditions.

He himself never actually intended Narnia to be "allegory" in the strict sense of the word, but rather a "supposition"; a "what if" a Christlike figure existed in another world, a magical world. It's true that he thought that his Fairy Story would be a means to "smuggle in 'Christian' Values past the 'Watchful Dragons'" of children's psyches.

But given his rather unorthodox view of Christianity (one that he reconciled with classical and animist paganism), it is quite clear that he "smuggled in" his own pagan world-view. Another particularly revealing passage is the full on Bacchanal in which Bacchus and his wild women draw Susan and Lucy into a wild ecstatic dance (Prince Caspian).

Another telling moment is the "infamous" Emeth scene (The Last Battle), in which a young Calormen who worshiped the Demon God Tash is accepted into the New Narnia (a sort of Heaven that is described in very Hindu/Buddhist terms). Emeth is accepted by Aslan because all the Good Works he did--believing they were to honour Tash--were actually drawing him to Aslan as All that Was Good belonged to Aslan and all that was Evil belonged to Tash.

Many of these views have drawn as much Fire and Brimstone from the Right Wing Fundamentalists as Harry Potter has. They see Lewis as a Satanic Occultist pretending to be a Christian to lure Children into "Evil."

Had he been born a generation later, I speculate that he would have had similar views to Joseph Campbell and Alan Watts. Lewis certainly was not the Religious Maniac that Phillip Pullman makes him out to be.

And frankly, If Lewis were alive to view this thread, he would be utterly appalled at the Pathetic attempts of DOC's Apologetics. It's not clear at all that Lewis interpreted the NT in quite the same manner as most orthodox Christians.


GB

 

[Aepervius]

Well the moderator said I could answer your question about Genesis 1 and 2. Your post was long and could take a long time to answer but I will get to it eventually. I will deal with the 1st sentence of your post first where you talk about a "myth". Here is part of what former skeptic Ralph Muncaster said in his 600 page apologetic book "Examine the Evidence" about Genesis starting on page 77.

SNIPED quote see original post

All your argument posit POST HOC explanation using today knowledge. A much better argument can be constructed and is widely recognized as correct and it involve myth synthezis. The genesis myth was taken from older folk myth, copied and synthetized, there are many evidence of it, and the firmament in the genesis is *NOT* space as we know it, but a far away half sphere of water HUNG over the earth. in other word it was considered a TAPESTRY a ROOF, *NOT* far away burning stars. In other creation myth this is either a god which is bending over the earth, or a sea above the earth.

AGAIN, this is the WIDELY accepted explanation of the firmament in the creation myth. Even by chrsitian theologian as far as i know.

 

[Aepervius]

The authors of the OT weren't randomly guessing an order, thoguh, were they? They knew the world around them, they knew that light and water were necessary for plants to grow, and that the world needed to exist in order for there to be a place for plants to grow (so it had to come first) and they knew that vegetation was necessary to provide food for animals. Muncaster's dishonest and deplorable attempt to paint the OT authors as people who had no knowledge of the world around them deserves nothing but contempt.

AFAIK the author of the OT did not really author the genesis part (more or less took other older myth and synthetized with their own religion). What you meant is that egyptian , sumerian author were aware of the world .

 

[welshdean]

Lothian,

Good questions re Genesis, could I add one more?

DOC, if the babble is 'the inerrant word of your particular flavour of god, why are there two different versions of the genesis myth? Don't be coy and insist that there aren't differences, that would just be dishonest. In order to preserve your integrity, I will indicate the differences below:


First Account (Genesis 1:1-2:3)
Genesis 1:25-27
(Humans were created after the other animals.) And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image.... So God created man in his own image.

Second Account (Genesis 2:4-25)
Genesis 2:18-19
(Humans were created before the other animals.) And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. AND

First Account (Genesis 1:1-2:3)
Genesis 1:27
(The first man and woman were created simultaneously.) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Second Account (Genesis 2:4-25)
Genesis 2:18-22
(The man was created first, then the animals, then the woman from the man's rib.) And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them.... And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.



So come on DOC, why are there such obvious differences and which should we believe and why?

How on earth does your 'Muncaster' nonsense answer the question? I asked about the differences in the two genesis accounts not how the genesis accounts can be endorsed by bastardised 'science'!

Thanks for responding though.

 

[Aepervius]

How on earth does your 'Muncaster' nonsense answer the question? I asked about the differences in the two genesis accounts not how the genesis accounts can be endorsed by bastardised 'science'!

Thanks for responding though.

Do you want the current theories, or do you want only DOC's answer ?

 

[Craig4]

Well the moderator said I could answer your question about Genesis 1 and 2. Your post was long and could take a long time to answer but I will get to it eventually. I will deal with the 1st sentence of your post first where you talk about a "myth". Here is part of what former skeptic Ralph Muncaster said in his 600 page apologetic book "Examine the Evidence" about Genesis starting on page 77.

You seem to put a lot of emphasis on the size of books or the number of posts. Why is that? The volume of writing is of no significance. Or to put it another way, a giant bucket of yak vomit is still a giant bucket of yak vomit. Just because there's is more of it does not make the yak vomit more valuable.

 

[Craig4]

I'm just curious Doc. When you started this thread what was your envisioned end state? Did you believe that your arguments and rationalizations would be so compelling that we'd all just fall over ourselves and embrace your religion? Did you assume that once you pointed out that the authors of the NT were capable of self deprecation that we'd see the light and feel all silly for denying your beliefs? Really, what were you thinking?

 

[catsmate]

There's a winged horse in the first and last books of The Chronicles Of Narnia*, written by Christian and apologist C S Lewis. The Narnia books are Christian allegory, even down to the death and resurrection of Aslan, and the whole point of the children meeting Aslan was to bring them closer to Jesus and/or God.**

So now we have our winged horse!

*Fledge, formally Strawberry the cab-horse, in The Magican's Nephew and The Last Battle.

**Aslan's words to Lucy in The Voyage of The Dawn Treader. I don't have a copy here at work but it's along the lines of "I brought you here so that you would know me, now you must know me in your world" In context, this is a clear reference to Aslan being Jesus/God.

At the end of the book.

"You are too old, children," said Aslan, "and you must begin to come close to your own world now."

"It isn't Narnia, you know," sobbed Lucy. "It's you. We shan't meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?"

"But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan.

"Are are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund.

"I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there."

 

[KingMerv00]

Step 1 (Genesis 1: 1,2)...

To summarize, the Biblical account:

1) Water
2) Light
3) The sky.
4) The ocean/land
5) The Sun and Moon
6) Birds and sea creatures
7) Land creatures
8) Man

In the real world:

1) The "Sky" (space)
2) Light (The universe allows photons to travel through it)
3) Water (Early Molecules)
4) The Sun
5) The Earth
6) The Moon
7) Oceans
8) Sea creatures
9) Land creatures
10) Birds
11) Man

 

[Garrette]

To summarize, the Biblical account:

1) Water
2) Light
3) The sky.
4) The ocean/land
5) The Sun and Moon
6) Birds and sea creatures
7) Land creatures
8) Man

In the real world:

1) The "Sky" (space)
2) Light (The universe allows photons to travel through it)
3) Water (Early Molecules)
4) The Sun
5) The Earth
6) The Moon
7) Oceans
8) Sea creatures
9) Land creatures
10) Birds
11) Man

Don't forget that the sky in the biblical account is actually water help up by a vault to separate it from water on earth.

Also that in the first creation account man and woman were formed simultaneously but later man is formed first and then woman formed out of him.

 

[joobz]

Don't forget that the sky in the biblical account is actually water help up by a vault to separate it from water on earth.

Also that in the first creation account man and woman were formed simultaneously but later man is formed first and then woman formed out of him.

exactly.
You can't get more wrong than "A firmament" to describe the space above the sky.

 

[Gandalfs Beard]

Also that in the first creation account man and woman were formed simultaneously but later man is formed first and then woman formed out of him.

Which is why the Ancient Hebrews (in their Oral traditions and Folk Tales) co-opted the Sumer-Babylonian Demon Goddess (Lilitu) Lilth to be Adam's first wife--in order to explain the disparity between the two different versions of the Creation Myth.

Of course most Jewish Theologians nowadays recognize that the Creation Stories are Myths cobbled together from different versions of the traditions when they were finally written down.

Indeed Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jews mostly accept some form of Evolution (either Theistic Evolution or Natural Selection) as not incompatible with their Creation Myths, seeing the myths as allegorical.

It seems it is mainly conservative American Christians of nearly all major Denominations (and even many liberal, moderate, and Nominal Christians) that don't believe in Evolution, either Theistically Guided or Natural Selection.

GB

 

[KingMerv00]

Don't forget that the sky in the biblical account is actually water help up by a vault to separate it from water on earth.

Also that in the first creation account man and woman were formed simultaneously but later man is formed first and then woman formed out of him.

It's also worth mentioning that the Biblical account HAD to get some things right by accident or the narrative would have made no sense:

1) Light had to come before the sun and moon. (Otherwise, creating light would have been redendant.)
2) The sky had to come before the sun and moon.
3) The land had to come before land animals.
4) The seas had to come before sea animals.
5) Water had to come before oceans.
6) The sky had to come before birds.

 

[wollery]

Just for DOC. I'd be more impressed with the bible writers if they'd come up with something like the following.

The Gospel according to Science.

1:1 In the beginning was the word, and the word was with Science, and the word was Bang!
1:2 And Science said, "Let there be matter and energy and gravity, oh, and electromagnetism and strong and weak nuclear forces", and it was so, and Science saw that it was good.
1:3 And Science blew upon the matter and energy to cool it and inflate it.
1:4 And Science said, "Let there be protons and neutrons and electrons and photons, and let the photons decouple from the matter", and it was so.
1:5 And Science said, "Let there be Hydrogen and some Helium, and maybe some Lithium, for verily, I like Lithium."
1:6 Then Science rested for a while.
1:7 And then Science said, "Let the Hydrogen and other stuff collapse under gravity to form super-massive stars."
And Science said, "Let these stars last but a short time, and via nucleosynthesis produce heavier elements. And let these stars explode and scatter these heavier elements into the cosmos, for they will be needed to make the next stars."
1:8 And then Science rested for a few million years.
1:9 And when the interstellar medium was rich with intermediate elements Science said, "Let the Hydrogen form new stars with these heavier elements, and let these stars last longer, except for the bigger ones, which will form more heavy elements and then explode as supernovae making even heavier elements which will be needed later on to form planets and life."
1:10 And it was so, and Science saw that it was good.
1:11 And Science rested for a couple of billion years.
1:12 And then Science said, "Let there be a third generation of stars, and let them form accretion disks from the heavier elements like Iron and Silicon, for the formation of the stars involves rotation, and this acts like unto a centrifuge, wherein the heavier components are pushed away from the centre, and rotate around the outer edges of the star. 1:13 And let these heavier elements form molecules and compounds, and from these form planets, both small and rocky, and large and gaseous. And let there also form comets and asteroids, and other junk left over from the planet formation."
1:14 And it was so, and Science saw that it was good.
1:15 And Science rested for another few billion years.
1:16 And after its long nap Science said, "Let there be water upon the Earth, and also other of the planets, and let this water be both liquid and gas, and sometimes solid."
1:17 And Science said, "Let there be pools in tidal areas, wherein there are some complex chemical reactions going on, 1:18 and let these reactions form simple replicating molecules."
1:19 And it was so, and Science saw that it was goopy, and it was the very start of life.
1:20 And Science said, "Let these chemicals evolve and form ever more complicated chemicals that will interact with each other in ever more complicated ways."
1:21 And the chemicals evolved and interacted in ever more complicated ways, and formed groups of chemicals that worked together for mutual benefit, and these were the first cells.
1:22 And Science saw that it was good.
1:23 And Science said, "Let these cells interact and work together to form bacteria and the bodies of animals and plants and fungi, and maybe even lichens, 'cause they're cool."
1:24 And so the animals and plants and fungi evolved as Science had decreed, and became a myriad of forms. And from this evolution some species became more intelligent, for it gave them an advantage.
1:25 And one species became human, and they were very intelligent, although not as intelligent as many of them thought.
1:26 And some of these humans looked around at the world and said, "Wow, this is such a perfect place, someone must have made it just for us."
1:27 And Science saw that this was bad
1:28 And the humans said, "Hey, let's call this someone God, and let's kill each other in his name, and make slaves of other humans who don't think the same way we do."
1:29 And Science shook its head and looked sad.
1:30 And the humans made up stories about how the world was formed by God in seven days, and they were wrong, for it took billions of years.